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ASU Origins Project: 'Dear Aliens' Writing Awards Ceremony

Posted: May 11, 2011 | 47 min 38 sec

“Dear Aliens. We study you. Do you take that personally?”

And so began one of the hundreds of entries in a “Dear Aliens” intergalactic-focused letter writing contest for kindergarteners, middle school and high school students who live in metropolitan Phoenix. The contest, conceived by British children’s author and journalist, Lucy Hawking, was part of the Arizona State University Origins Project Science and Culture Festival.

On April 9, the nine winning writers were celebrated during a program in which a 144-character excerpt from the top entry was sent into space via a moonbounce.

Children, their parents and teachers also had a chance to meet with Cambridge Professor Stephen Hawking, who read the winning letter during the program, and Arizona State University theoretical physicists and cosmologists Lawrence Krauss and Paul Davies.